My little stinker

Hunter has hit the terrible two's full-stride. I can no longer keep up with him. The hardest part right now is that he has discovered a world of fun inside his crib by himself. I have learned that if he even THINKS he can get out of his jammies he will not fall asleep--at all--EVER (theory has been proven....I don't even want to talk about it.....)

This is now what I resort to so that he will fall asleep.

1. Tape his diaper on him.

I ran out of duct tape so now it is packaging tape. AND, I can't just go around once, he has wiggled out of that a few times, I have to circle his body at least three times.

2. Put his jammies on inside out and backwards.

For a while we just had to put them on inside out, but alas, he learned how to unzip them that way as well.

3. Safety pin them on.

For about 2 weeks I was able to just put the safety pin at the top of his jammies so the zipper couldn't slide down. Then, a few weeks ago he discovered that if he is REALLY patient he can wiggle his entire body out of the neck hole. So now I have to pull the fabric close together and safety pin it that way so that he doesn't have any extra room to wiggle.


Seriously, if he figures out how to get out of his jammies after all of this I give up....I don't know what more I can do.

Once we get him "jammied up" we have to follow his little routine to get him to lay down.

First we have to put him on the floor and say "one, two, three, up" before putting him in the bed.

Then we have to have his pillow in the EXACT right spot (we have spent upwards of 5 minutes finding the CORRECT spot, it drives me nuts).

Our final step is wrapping his "towel" (that's what he calls his favorite blanket, it actually used to be Ryan's when he was a baby) around his back and shoulders.

Then he bounces twice and lays down.





Typically if we follow all these steps he will fall asleep pretty quickly-thank goodness.

Stinker.

The art of building a bear (or in our case, a kitty)

Ryan has been promising Madison that he would take her to Build-a-Bear for two years now. Since we ate lunch at the mall he figured now was as good a time as any. So, here is our Build-a-Bear adventure.

She picked Hello Kitty as her bear. No shock there.......she LOVES Hello Kitty.

She got to help stuff it, she thought that was pretty cool.

All complete. One stuffed bear.

I'm pretty sure her favorite part was being able to "wash" her bear.

She picked Hello Kitty unders. Again, no surprise there :)

While she was dressing her bear I was attempting to distract Hunter so he wouldn't tear the place apart. Here is how our interaction went:

Me: "Hunter, smile for the camera"

Me: "No seriously, smile for the camera"

Me: "Hunter, stop being a monster and smile for the camera"

Me: "I give up, you win"

The end result: One Hello Kitty bear dressed in her Hello Kitty attire.

Madison even got to register her bear with a birthday and everything. She named her Isabelle.

On the way home she even buckled her in so she would be safe. At least I've taught my kids something!

Preschool 2010

Hunter started preschool this year. I found someone who takes 2 & 3 year olds, and being smart, signed him up! I loved having a few hours a week with both kids in school. It made errands soooo much easier. Plus Hunter loved it. Every time we would go to the stop sign by our house he would point in the direction we took to preschool and say Ms. Kelly, over and over until I figured out what he was saying and then I would tell him that it wasn't a preschool day. He would get sad and quiet for a few minutes and then do it all over again the next time we went to the stop sign. I'm so glad he loved it!

Here he is with Ms. Kelly on the last day of preschool.

Here he is with Ms. Amanda, his other teacher

They did so many cute projects throughout the year. Here are a few of my favorites. Most of the worksheets and such didn't even make it home. Hunter likes to tear paper and when I put him in the car he would cry until I let him hold his work for the day. Thus, most were destroyed, but I dealt with the crying when it was something I wanted to keep. These are two art projects I loved:

This one is a bit blurry because it has real popcorn on it and so the scanner couldn't get a clear enough picture since it couldn't lay flat....oh well, I still love it!


Towards the end of the year Hunter got a Caterpillar in a cocoon to take home and watch and after a week or two it would emerge as a butterfly. Thankfully it took very little work on my part to get it "hatched." I put it in a shoe box, per the instructions, and one day I stopped home for a quick minute and found the butterfly had emerged and had gotten out of the shoe box! I quickly put it back so the kids could watch it fly off. Here is where I found it trying to escape out the back sliding door:

When both kids were home from school I let them take it outside and watch it flap it's wings to gain strength.

Hunter tried to help it on it's way. The instructions said it would flap slowly for a few hours and then fly off. We got lucky and went inside to eat dinner and as soon as I let the kids go back outside to check on it, it flew away. Of course I didn't have my camera for that part!

They (and by they, I really mean Madison. Hunter didn't really get it) really enjoyed seeing the different stages of cocoon to butterfly. I thought it was pretty cool, too!

The very last day of preschool the kids got to have a water day. Here is Hunter all ready to go. He insisted on wearing this hat and then would not take it off for about 2 weeks. The kid slept in it and everything (I have a post coming on his obsession with his hat). I put my foot down for church.

Isn't he the cutest thing you ever did see? He is so cute that I have a hard time saying no to him for anything!


Ms. Kelly and Ms. Amanda made the most adorable books for the kids/mom's and gave them out the last day. Here is Hunter's. They interviewed him for the book and I died laughing on some of his answers. Granted he barely talks and hasn't figured out how to answer questions, but he did a great job.

(he's a little obsessed with balls, so this doesn't surprise me in the least)

(Blue is his absolute favorite color. When he starts the dishwasher he will only use the blue cascade tablets-he leaves the orange ones for Madison)

3 months old already! Where has time gone?

Presley is such a happy girl. She loves attention and gives the sweetest smiles to anyone who talks to her. She still loves to be held and will now follow people around the room as they move.

She has discovered her feet and loves to grab onto her toes. I LOVE her little fat rolls, they are so dang cute!

She is starting to give us different facial expressions when we talk to her....I love watching our kids grow and develop different skills. She is cooing and mimicking our mouth's movement and trying to figure out how the heck we make the sounds we do! It is so fun to watch.

The other day I went to get her out of the car and discovered her headband around her mouth. It explained why she cried the entire way home! A few days later I watched her grab her headband and try to pull it off but it ended up over her eyes instead. Poor thing.....I torture her to death with her bows, but she is so cute with them!

Madison was trying to calm her down one day and this is what I found. I think she might be a tad bit too young to play with a sword.....but hey, at least she was willing to help me out!

Happy 3 months mark Presley!

As I look over the posting I realize that Presley is in her carseat A LOT. I feel so bad for her but we are in the car the majority of the day. It's just part of being the 3rd kid. It also explains why she cries every time I put her into her carseat. She knows that once she's in it will be a while before she gets out again.

Catching up with Madison

The last few months have been incredibly chaotic for our family. Madison has had so much going on that the other kids and I are exhausted just driving her around! She's had school, swim lessons, piano, gymnastics and a few play dates. I didn't mean to over schedule us quite so much, but hey, it happens and next year I will be MUCH more careful in what I put the kids in.

Swim Lessons

She has been in swim lessons for the last month, she did 2 sessions and LOVED them. I'm so glad, I'm such a water baby that it would make it hard for me if one of my kids didn't enjoy the water.

For the first session she stayed in level 1 to refresh all of her skills. With us not having a pool she doesn't get to swim near as much as any of us would like. She did great! I love her swim instructor, the first skill she teaches the kids is the "recovery." I think that is what she calls it. Basically the kids have to learn to go under the water and then come up and float on their back. She says that if they know that skill they should never drown. Hey, I'm a fan, the last thing I want is to deal with the death of a child via drowning. Madison got this skill down pat last year and did great with it again this year.

In her second session she did Level 2 and was diving by the end. I was so proud of her, she was terrified of diving but thanks to positive peer pressure she was diving with the rest of them. She also began learning side breathing, front stroke and back stroke. She still has a bunch to work on to get really strong in level 2, but she did so well!

Random Story with picture

This is just a random story about her, but I love this picture and got a kick out of her creativity. She discovered this new show with a superhero named Spartacus in it. It's beyond cheesy, but whatever. She likes it.

Anyway, she put on her super girl jammies and her snow boots so that she could be Spartacus and save whomever around the house. Mostly she just ran and jumped off of all the furniture. Luckily I got a cute picture of her before she ended up in timeout for the aforementioned jumping off of furniture.

First Piano Recital

Madison had her first piano recital this past month. She has been in piano the last 6 or 7 months and is actually doing really well. I wasn't sure how quick she would pick it up, or really if she would even like it, but she loves it and, for the most part, practices without me having to nag her.

She got to play 2 songs and was able to memorize the first one but had the book open just in case she needed it for the second. She played "The Opposite Song" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." She is reading the notes on the staff and is able to play with both hands. I'm so proud of her.

She has a tendency to be silly, but she took the recital seriously and was very professional during her turns.

Of course I forgot my camera that records video, so I was only able to get still shots of the night. I was bummed about that but excited that the other 2 kids made it through without too many issues.

I'm a big boy now!

About two months ago Hunter decided he didn't like diapers anymore. I LOVE them....there's not much that I dread more than having to take my child in to some nasty bathroom to go potty. Ugh....the germs give me the willy's just thinking of them.

Anyway, back to the story, every time I would tell him that it was time to change his diaper or tell Madison to go potty he wanted to go potty on the real potty also. I would frequently go looking for him and he would have stripped all his clothes and diaper off and be wanting to sit on the potty. It was actually becoming a pain in the butt for me.




So, after a few weeks of this happening I decided it was time to potty train the kid. If he was that interested then I was willing to go through the torture of potty training. The hardest part is finding a period of time where we would be home for more than an hour at a time. Once I decided to become 100% anti-social for a few weeks we started the process.

Dare I say it? We have success! I have a big boy now! And oh, my goodness, a little boy in his unders is about the cutest thing ever!!!! His favorite are his Elmo, but he will wear spider man or another Sesame Street character in a pinch. However, he will let me know that they are not his first choice. I tell him to get over it and if he doesn't have accidents then he will be able to wear whatever ones he wants. I'm such a sympathetic mommy.




The unknown result of potty training is that he pretty much refuses to wear clothes anymore. This is what he looks like at home all day long. I don't even care anymore. As long as he will wear clothes without a battle when we have to go out then I'm not fighting that battle. Besides, he is just too freakin' adorable to put into words going around all day in his unders.

I'm so proud of my little guy!